Japan Fears Down Side Of Reforms

November 24, 1989|By Ronald E. Yates, Chicago Tribune.

TOKYO — As Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union undergo unprecedented political change, few nations watch more intently than Japan.

The pragmatic politicians, business leaders and bureaucrats who run this nation fear that without the familiar military threat of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, the United States will view Japan and its increasing economic power as a greater danger.

Some Americans already do. Angered by a controversial book by Sony founder Akio Morita and conservative politician Shintaro Ishihara that takes the U.S. to task for short-sighted economic and business practices, a majority of Americans have told pollsters that they consider Japan`s economic aggressiveness more of a threat than the Soviet Union`s military might.

``The United States is losing an old enemy (the Soviet Union), and many Americans seem ready to substitute Japan,`` a Japanese government official said last week.

That possibility distresses many Japanese. After a speech last week before the Research Institute of Japan, a powerful organization of Japanese business officials, U.S. Ambassador Michael Armacost was asked repeatedly about the impact of the political thaw in Eastern Europe on Japan-U.S. relations.

``The relationship between Japan and the United States on economic issues will take on greater importance as events in East Europe lead to a diminished potential for conflict and military spending recedes,`` said Armacost.

``That will place a greater burden on Japan and the United States to jointly manage their relationship and to keep the relationship in good working order.``

With relations between the two economic superpowers already strained because of a nagging $50 billion trade imbalance in Japan`s favor, that kind of crisis management will not be easy.

Tokyo has been unable and, in some cases, unwilling to alter longstanding economic practices that impede U.S. imports and greater American investment in Japan.

And the Strategic Impediments Initiative talks, aimed at allowing each nation to examine the other`s economic system and suggest changes to ensure freer trade, are viewed as a U.S. attempt to ``force`` Japan to bend to its will.

An increasing number of Japanese, led by nationalists like Ishihara, are insisting that Japan tell the U.S. to face up to the realities of the ``new economic order`` and accept its economic defeat ``gracefully.``

The real cause of trade friction between the U.S. and Japan, Ishihara says, is ``bigotry.`` Americans, he says, cannot accept the fact that a nation they once defeated militarily has come back to whip them economically.

Japan, Ishihara says, is in a unique position to force the United States to stop ``pushing it around.``

First, Japan must make sure its coveted high technology remains

``exclusive,`` he says. In this way, Japan can control the balance of power in the world by determining which nations get these technologies.

Then Japan must create its own impregnable defense system to keep it safe from the military wrath of nations like the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

A recent poll ranked Ishihara just behind Takako Doi, the charismatic leader of Japan`s Socialist Party, as the most popular politician in the country.

Some political insiders say Ishihara, a former minister of transportation who belongs to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has an 80 percent chance of becoming prime minister within the next 10 years.

``Japan is in the process of fundamentally rethinking its relationship with the United States,`` said a West German diplomat. ``The postwar era is finally ending, and Japan is no longer behaving like a defeated nation. It is behaving like a victorious nation.``

There is a sense of superiority and arrogance in Japan unseen since the 1930s, say some Japanese.

``The level of arrogance and nationalism in Japan is astounding,`` says Hiroko Tanabe, a high school history teacher. ``The students in my class think the whole world is at their feet.``

Yet, as the world finally closes the curtain on more than 40 years of post-World War II antagonisms, it is inevitable that many will not fully understand or endorse Japan`s new role, say otheanese foreign aid.

``It is imperative for Japan to take the initiative in introducing new international rules to the changing world,`` said Masahiko Ishizuka, editor of the Japan Economic Journal, in a recent editorial. ``We must put an end to

(Japan`s) passivity in the management of world affairs, even at the risk of provoking charges of arrogance.``